Verizon and the Kin: Poor Marketing Promotes Dangerous Behavior

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Dear Verizon and Microsoft,

I would like to say that I have taken the time to appreciate your newest device, the Kin; however, I have been so troubled by your inappropriate marketing of the product that I can say the uniqueness of the phone itself is no longer of any interest to me.

Originally there was the controversy over the "sexting" commercial which appeared to be Verizon and Microsoft's promotion and encouragement of youth taking sexually explicit pictures and sending them via MMS or email.  It appears the negative publicity you received was enough to discourage you from running the commercial further because it was pulled.  I cannot dictate what consenting adults do with their telephones:  they have to reap their own consequences.  However encouraging youth to do it is utterly irresponsible.

Now, Verizon and Microsoft, you've done it again.  During primetime television last night, a commercial for the Verizon Kin ran which blatantly encouraged dangerous and ill-thought through activity.  The commercial speaks of a young woman "friending" someone she doesn't know on Facebook.  Facebook, themselves, have stated this is a dangerous and potentially troubling activity.  Yet this commercial seems to not only make the statement that it's fun to connect with people you don't know through Facebook, but then you can set up a place, date and time to meet up.

In the commercial, two young girls go to the home of this "Facebook friend" only to find out he's 20 years older than his picture indicates.  In the commercial, the girls have a good laugh about it and send out a text to all their friends letting them know he's a faker.  In real life this scenario could have resulted in a much different ending:  ask Ashleigh Hall, oh, you can't because she died this way.

This is simply poor marketing.  Having seen plenty of Microsoft and Verizon commercials in the past which have been funny, entertaining, and engaging, I would assume there has been a change in marketing direction that was not clearly thought through.  If adults want to make poor decisions about how to handle their personal safety, let them do it on their own without your encouragement.  Whoever the intended audience for this commercial is - it targets young people, and it sends a disturbing message.  In a world where children get abducted after meeting people online, where a college student gets abducted off a couch in a home and gets raped and killed, and where cyber bullying takes place and at times results in death, what favor is Verizon and Microsoft doing by advertising their product this way?  And whoever their ad agency is isn't doing them any favors either.

Until we, as consumers, stand up against such inappropriate marketing, it will continue.  However, if we choose to speak up with both our mouths and our dollars - which is our right as much as it is theirs to air this ad - they will be forced to chance their strategy.  You can choose to say nothing but remember, if it weren't an issue, there wouldn't be related topics already in the news talking about how deadly this behavior can be.

Hey, Verizon - "Can you hear me now?"







Social Media and the Pea by Alice Ann Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.socialmediaandthepea.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.socialmediaandthepea.blogspot.com/.

Should 'Tweens Be On the Internet: Sing it, Bobby!

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"Social" and "teen":  two words that just seem to go together.  "Social" and "'tween", well of course, 'tweens are social, but the question is:  should they be on social networking sites?  In a previous blog, we talked about the Facebook Panic Button that Great Britain was calling for to TRY and keep children safe from child predators online.  Yesterday I posted an article from ABC's Good Morning America about a New Jersey Principal calling for the parents of 'tweens to get their children off of social networking sites in order to reduce incidents of bullying.  The common thread?  Youth.  The real question, are 'tweens emotionally ready to be on the Internet?


I have family and friends with 'tweens on these sites.  Ultimately the decision is up to the parents of these children as to whether they should be on there.  If a parent determines a child can open an account, it is then the parent's responsibility to monitor it.  Each child is different.  Some are more mature than others.  Some have a higher level of integrity.  Some are great kids with fabulous boundaries and incredible decision making skills.  Some could find trouble in a padded room with no windows and no sharp objects.  Some kids could get in trouble while asleep.  It's just the way the world is, and the parent who can hold the child's hand, has the ability to monitor email accounts, web searches, networking accounts, and make sure little Christopher or little Christine has his or her Twitter clothes on might have a child who can be on the Internet.


I would not want the responsibility.  I have too many responsibilities.  Taking additional time out to go through website after website to read comments, see what Billy or Johnny, Sue or Polly are looking at online, what was said, how it was said, what information is being given out, who it's being given to, etc. is much too much work.  It is hard enough to keep a kid safe on your residential street, I would not want to keep a kid safe on the Information Super Highway.  Eventually kids need to have the skills to use the Internet which really should come gradually, and it should be monitored.  Always reminding him or her that with "great reward comes great responsibility".  Trust and freedom need to be earned, and age does have a way of letting hormones and decision making skills mellow which certainly helps too.  If you wouldn't want to let your child walk down the middle of a regular highway because the odds of something bad happening are high, then letting a child walk down the Information Super Highway probably has the same odds of something zooming by and hurting him or her there, too.


Remember that first time you got feedback that the email you sent out IN ALL CAPS WAS CONSIDERED YELLING, and you found out someone took offense?  Or when you accidentally sent out an email to the wrong person or with an error, and you wished you could recall it, but by then it was too late?  Or in 1992 when you got into an AOL chat room and pretended to be someone you weren't just to see if you could get away it?  If we can find ourselves in plenty of trouble with the Internet, how can we not question if our kids can handle it?


Is your 'tween emotionally ready to deal with seeing something he or she shouldn't, or reading something negative about his or herself that is posted for everyone to see?  Is he or she ready to deal with the fall-out that might happen if he or she posts something that hurts someone else?  If your 'tween is ready for all of that, he or she must be more emotional mature than I am, and more than most of the people in the world, because realistically, none of us like dealing with drama, and we don't stop struggling with it as adults.  


The fact is Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Loopt, even email can all seem innocent enough.  You can talk to your best friend's daughter in elementary school, your second cousin twice removed who's in Jr. High, and your neighbor's cousin's uncle's sister's kid, and it might all be fine because you're an upstanding citizen with good intentions and appropriate boundaries, but not everyone out there is like you and sooner or later someone will be the wrong person who was intentionally on accident let into that child's life.

If you're the kind of person who gets upset over Facebook privacy settings being changed because you feel you are being exposed, then think about how your child is being exposed by being on the Internet.  As the "wise" Bobby Brown would say, it really is your "prerogative (do what you want to do)."  Just make sure - as your children are growing up in a society where their world is no longer confined to the neighborhood you live in - you make sure that "every little step" they take "you will be there".

Social Media and the Pea by Alice Ann Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.socialmediaandthepea.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.socialmediaandthepea.blogspot.com/.